How to start using nix?

If you're a Linux user, it's possible you could have heard some fuss about Nix.

But what is it? How to use it? Where could you start?

This post intends to present some introductory answers to ease the burden of your path coming into the best side of the force.

What is nix?

Nix is tree things, all at once, alt at the same time. They are:

1. A programing language (therefore referred as nixlang).


2. A package and dependency manager (that includes other nice tools).


3. An operational system, in the form of Linux distribution, called
   
   
   

   One other thing to avoid is all the and , it's not great, but they will give you an overall idea of how things work and some capabilities to work with .nix files when needed.

   
   
   

   Second, you should be able to understand how to use nix-shell and it's , understand how generations and unstable branches work and how to mix and match them to your liking. I recommend star doing this inside nix-shell and any other nix environments. Use some packages from stable, others from unstable, look for things that are available in one of them and not the others etc.

   
   
   

   Forth, go easy! What you should really be looking forward is to try nix on the small things. In that regard, it's much like bash, it will not solve most of your problems, but will for sure make your life hell of a lot easier. Look for small things like test environments, quick setups, the disposable spaces where you want to use some new thing and be sure it will not hurt your system configs etc.

   
   
   

   
   
   
   When will you be ready to use NixOS?
   

   
   
   

   This really depends. For me, changing distros was kind of a necessity since I was in distro hopping hell due to Nvidia/TensorFlow fucking ecosystem for CUDA and machine learning. It saved me and thank god I have no longer this kind of problem.

   
   
   

   However, sometimes on NixOS you could have other problems. You are not me, and your problems and tradeoffs can be different than mine. If you already know the basics, and think the tradeoffs could be worth, go for it.

   
   
   

   One thing I can say for certain is, if you have a single stable system, you'll always have at least that version working everywhere. That is more peace of mind that you could ever find elsewhere.

   
   
   

   
   
   
   Concluding remarks
   

   
   
   

   For me, using the whole nix ecosystem has been a wonderful experience. It solved so many problems I had and didn't think there could be a solution. It also helped me to make elaborate things work in the most simple and elegant way. If this kind of thing is what you're looking for, nix could be for you.

   
   
   

   Lastly, good luck! I hope this post can give at least some idea or inspiration on where to start.

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